revolution

revolution, at any level, requires you to be aware of something greater than yourself. it means stepping out of yourself. getting away from yourself, separating yourself from yourself, if that made sense. because revolution is change, and change for the better requires God.

when i am feeling good, i might take a shower, put on some baggy jeans and maybe wear my glasses, clean everything up, make my bed, and sit on it at my laptop or to read and maybe even sometimes ponder how great it feels. but really, that's a pretty small deal. in fact, the only thing it accomplishes is making me feel better. i mean, that's great for me, and it's convenient, but i'm not sure it exactly gets anything done.

God's revolution goes deeper then a clean room, then a clean appearance. it touches a heart, changes a soul, alters a personality. something like...pride. lust. malicious thoughts. what about brokenness? self-doubt? what about pretending? performance mentality? deception? God's revolution cleans the soul. but it requires...God. God's got to be in the driver seat of our lives, instead of us. we can't lead ourselves, we can't guide or direct our lives. we're lost. we're fragile. we're misled. we've misled others. we need to be found, to be corrected.

and so revolution takes stepping away from ourselves, perhaps outside of ourselves. it requires us to have our eyes focused on greater things than feeling good. and it's possible to use God to feel good. it's sin too. you can sin in the church just as easily as you can outside of it, and you can keep your eyes on yourself through the whole service and whenever you pray. i forgot and that's what i did.

i have a misconception about God. when one girl says that she cares about me, i think "oh, now i have a reason to try to succeed. i better get my act together because someone is watching," but i didn't think that in relation to God. i didn't value that God was watching everything, hoping that i would make the choices, but also violently disappointed at my compromises and agreements with sin. and all the more violently disappointed because i didn't consider Him as my audience, my singular audience. and i didn't consider Him as a worthy audience. i didn't consider Him as my only real audience.

that's why i used to run. the little things that no one saw, i knew God saw, so i did them. i worked hard when no one saw because i knew God saw. in the little things that no one sees or pays attention to, in those secret places, God speaks. it's like how there were thunderstorms, earthquakes, and other natural disasters when Elijah was running away, but God didn't speak in any of those things. He spoke in the silence, He whispered in one of those moments most would have missed. i would miss. anyone would miss if they were not looking for it, desperate and set for it.

i don't run like i used to run. when i see people running, i spite them. i think arrogant thoughts and shoot them down, jumping to competition. i want to get away from that. i want something better. but it's still a bigger fight than i can even begin to battle or think of battling. i'm cornered on all sides, the time isn't to fight. the time is to praise. the time is to worship, and to lose myself in worship.

i was reading the first couple chapters of Acts, it was talking about how the first real revolution came when the apostles, 12 of them, were all in one accord, and they were blessed and taken over by the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, and that day, 3000 got saved because they saw something they had never seen before and they all lived together and shared together and people were being daily added to their fellowship, daily saved.

revolution, at any level, requires God. we don't know how to do it. need to step away from pride, need to stop taking stock in what i think i know, in what i have. and try to give to God. because He's worthy.